Tag: Jose Reyes

The 104 bitcoin (worth $468,675 CAD) that Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX “inadvertently” sent to its dead CEO’s cold wallets on February 6—a day after the company filed for creditor protection—was due to a “platform setting error.”

That and other news was included in Ernst & Young’s (EY’s) second report, released on February 20. EY is the court-appointed monitor in Quadriga’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). At least now we know that the bitcoin wasn’t sent by somebody clumsily pushing a wrong button. Still, that single automation wiped out more than half of Quadriga’s hot wallet funds.

The rest of the hot wallet funds, worth $434,068 CAD, are now safe from Quadriga. On February 14, EY transferred the coins into cold wallets that it controls. The funds include 51 bitcoin, 33 bitcoin cash, 2,032 bitcoin gold, 822 litecoin, and 951 ether. But all of this is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the $250 million CAD owed to Quadriga’s 115,000 creditors—most of which is presumably lost forever.

Also in the report: Recall that Quadriga elected a new board following the death of its CEO Gerald Cotten on December 9. The new directors included Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson, her stepfather Thomas Beazley and a man named Jack Martel, who nobody knew too much about. Apparently, Martel stepped down on February 11.

And more money is needed to fund Quadriga’s CCAA process. EY and Quadriga’s law firm Stewart McKelvey have already burned through the nearly $300,000 CAD Robertson put up to initiate the process in January.

Additional money for the CCAA process—and ultimately for Quadriga’s creditors—will come from Quadriga’s payment processors, once they hand the money over to EY in the form of bank drafts. EY also has to get a bank to agree to accept the bank drafts, which is not an easy thing to do. Most banks want nothing to do with Quadriga’s money.

Costodian, a company created by payment processor Billerfy specifically to manage Quadriga’s funds, is holding $26 million CAD in bank drafts. After the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce froze those funds in January 2018, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice took control of that money, and in December, released the funds back to Costodian in the form of bank drafts issued by the Bank of Montreal (BOM).

According to EY, Costodian has so far handed over four BOM bank drafts totaling $20 million CAD. But it is waiting for a court order before releasing two more bank drafts.

One of those is for roughly $70,000 USD. These are personal funds belonging to Costodian’s principal Jose Reyes. EY has determined that those funds do indeed belong to Reyes, but he still needs to sign the check over to EY for disbursement.

The other BOM bank draft in question is for $5 million CAD. Of that amount, Custodian claims that $61,000 CAD also represent Reyes’ personal funds, and that $778,000 CAD is due to Custodian for unpaid processing fees.

Quadriga creditors don’t agree that Costodian should be paid these fees. To resolve the issue, EY notes that “a separate dispute resolution mechanism will be required during the course of these CCAA proceedings.”

In addition, Stewart McKelvey is holding 1,004 in bulk drafts totaling $6 million. These drafts were issued to 1009926 BC LTD, a payment processor run by a former Quadriga contractor. The problem is 1009926 BC LTD was dissolved in January 2018 for failure to file an annual report, so EY is looking to potentially restore the company.

EY is currently negotiating with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), where it hopes to deposit most of these checks. RBC is proceeding with caution, however.

According to EY, “a stranger to the CCAA proceedings, RBC has expressed hesitation to accept and disburse the BMO drafts, bulk drafts and future amounts, without direction and relief from the court.”

A hearing is scheduled for February 22 to give direction to the banks and to the third-party payment processors, so the funds can be freed up.

After that, another hearing to extend the stay of the CCAA proceedings is scheduled for March 5 in Halifax, where angry Quadriga creditors are looking to stage a protest. The protesters are urging the court to discontinue the CCAA proceedings and launch a criminal probe into Quadriga.

Update (February 21, 12:30 ET): I made some changes to clarify the amount of personal funds that Custodian principal Jose Reyes claims belong to him in two BOM bank drafts.